Author: Jonathon

The Harlequin: Anita Blake Vampire Hunter #15 is out today in paperback.

Labels: anita, blake, hamilton, harlequin, hunter, laurell, vampire

Sunday our daughter, Trinity, made comments about the fact that she’d never seen me actually drive the Foose. I hadn’t realized that all my practice driving had been either when she was at school or with her father. I hadn’t done that deliberately, or maybe I had. I mean when driving a stick shift for the first time in twenty-five years, do you really want to have your kid see the learning curve? I guess my ego was fragile enough to avoid that last humiliation. And humiliation it has been.
Yes, Charles and Jon have both told me that I’ve been doing well, but I didn’t think I was doing well, and in my world, in the end, that’s what decides how I feel about something. I had decided to feel bad about the Mustang. I mean it was impractical, and it was flashy, and it was . . . It was so not me. I found excuses not to drive the car, or to have Jon drive the car. I hadn’t realized how bad it had gotten until Trinity made her remarks, and I realized she was right. She had never seen me drive the Foose.
So this weekend when we went out to see a movie with our friend Richard, I drove the Foose. Drove to lunch and drove to the theatre. Yes, I killed it a couple of times in the one parking lot of the first restaurant, that turned out to be closed until far too late to be useful, but it was okay. It’s okay that I’m not perfect, other than that moment, I was fine.
We saw FORBIDDEN KINGDOM, and it was good. It was a Woo-ping Yeun, so it was great wire-fu. I mean it’s a movie with Jet Li and Jackie Chan in it, so it was fun, and visually wonderfully. It was nice to see Jet Li in a movie where he got to laugh.
When we came out after the movie it was raining. The Foose, the Baby, was getting wet, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that Jon asked if I wanted him to drive home. I was insulted at first, then realized that it was what I’d trained him to do about the car. I would drive us somewhere, then he’d drive home. If it got dark; I didn’t want to drive the Foose for the first time in the dark. If there was a line of traffic, I didn’t want to work the clutch in stop and go traffic. If there was a chance of ice anywhere, I’d let him drive. I realized that I had found excuse after excuse not to drive the car. And given Jon excuse after excuse to drive the car. I mean what sane man is going to turn down a chance to drive the Foose?
But as we stood there in the rain, and I considered his offer, I realized it pissed me off. Both that he’d offered and that I was actually considering it. We let Richard and Trin get in the back seat out of the rain and we discussed it.
I asked, “Is it really that much more dangerous to drive this car in the rain?”
“A little, but you know how when you spin the wheels you tend to panic?”
“Yes.”
“In the rain, that will be worse.”
He was right, I had been panicking when the wheels spun, or I gunned the engine accidentally. I had panicked when I killed the engine. We stood in the rain, and I thought about all of it. I thought about how I’d been giving up. I thought about a lot of things as the cold spring ran came down. Finally, I made my decision. It was my car. If it was truly my car than a little rain didn’t change that. Screw it, I was driving home.
And that’s exactly what I did. I had no trouble, other than a bumpy moment shifting, but only once. It was no harder to drive in the rain. I’m sorry, wet or dry, the Foose hugs the road like she’s got Spider powers. Admittedly, I made sure I remembered where the windshield wipers and light switches were before we started moving. The fact that I still didn’t know where everything was, tells you just how much I’d been avoiding my car.
I drove home, in the rain. I drove home and didn’t fear the lights as they changed, or having to shift. I’m not perfect, yet, but that’s okay. I’ll get better. The important thing is that, for the first time, I decided that the Foose, truly is my car. Rain or shine, day or night; it’s mine. Jon will have to get his own muscle car to play with, because I’ve finally decided that the Foose is mine.

We use the radio for our alarm. We woke to the news. I was half asleep the first time the news cast talked about the man in Austria that had kept his daughter captive for twenty-four years, and fathered seven children by her. I thought I’d dreamed it. It couldn’t be real, right?
I was getting dressed when the news repeated, and Mother of God, it was real. This is one of those real life events that make me realize that nothing I write will ever be as awful as what real people are doing to each other. Researching real crime has made me know things I didn’t want to know, but this case is too bizarre to be real. You couldn’t have used this plot in a book or movie as fiction because it would have been too unbelievable. Surely, no one could keep their daughter captive in a basement for that long, fathering children by her, and no one notice.
The neighbors are asking themselves that in interviews. Three of the children, two of them nineteen and eighteen had never seen the light of day. The oldest girl fell gravely ill, and the man took her to the hospital, where they appealed for the mother to come forward and give them more medical information. It was supposed to be a case of a bad mother having abandoned a sick child with their long suffering grandparents. Then the man (I won’t call him father or grandfather, he’s just the man) brought the mother and all the other children up, and out. Then the truth came out.
Several people have asked, why he brought the girl to medical attention? Why didn’t he let her die? I think I can answer that. If you listen to most molesters they don’t think of themselves as bad people. They aren’t evil in their own minds. If he had let the girl die, then he would have been evil even to himself. He could not bear that. So, he tried to save her. Why did he finally bring the others up? Maybe, at 73, he wondered what would happen if he died, and they were trapped down there. He didn’t save them for them, never mistake that, he brought them out into the light because if he had died knowing that they would slowly starve to death, he wouldn’t have been able to see himself as anything but evil. No one, even monsters, want to believe they are wrong.
This story is so overwhelming, that I had trouble settling down to work. I spoke with a couple of friends, and they, too, were having trouble not dwelling on it. It was simply too inconceivable to be real, but it was real.
But bear in mind that today the three children that have never seen sunlight, are seeing it. The woman who has been enslaved for over two decades is free today. As terrible as it all is, today is a better day. Today, there are people who truly care about all of them, taking care of them. Today there is hope. And there are moments when hope is all there is, to act as our shield against the unfathomable evil of our fellow human beings.
Don’t try and understand what has happened, because most of us cannot understand it. It is so awful, so unthinkable, that our minds just can’t wrap themselves around it. People are going to be trying to make sense of this for years, but I tell you now, there is no sense to be made. We are sane, and we are not evil, so we will not understand this person, or what he did. There is no set of circumstances where this sounds like a good idea to us. It is so far beyond the pale, that there is no conceiving of it. For the few people that heard about this, and thought, even for a moment, that it sounded like a good idea, don’t get cute. Keep it in the realm of fantasy, and know that there are some of us who understand that, some of you, didn’t react with horror. Some of you, thought, wow, I wonder. The answer is, no. You can’t get away with it, because this person getting caught makes the rest of us realize that this is possible. Him getting caught makes it harder for the rest of you. Though, most of you, will be comforting yourself with the thought that you would never do it to your own daughter. Only strangers. I suppose that is some comfort, some line to draw. I suppose in the end, for the people who didn’t react with outrage, that any line you can draw is safer for the rest of us.
Some of you think that last paragraph was too dark, too creepy? You don’t know what’s out there, and you don’t want to know. Worse, you don’t know what’s inside the mind of the person next to you, and you don’t want to know that either.
I spent the day writing about the morgue, and my own created serial killer, Olaf. This was one of the days when what I was writing, paled beside what was happening in the real world.

Hi! Well, I messed up the auctions. You do not have to pick it up in St. Louis. We will pay the shipping. Sorry for the mistake!
Darla

I have what amounts to an allergy hang over. My friends that drink tell me that the symptoms are surprisingly similar. Headache, body aches, sensitivity to light, sore muscles, and just an overall grumpy not feeling so well. Spring has sprung and the pollen is attacking my immune system like a well organized army, or at least a persistent one. Damn trees having sex, stop getting your pollen all over me! That sounds like something you’d protest at a bad night at a really bad club. Worst thing I ever gotten on me for real was wax from a novice performer that got overzealous and missed most of her partner and got the audience. You ever try to get wax off of silk? Another reason not to sit right next to the stage.
One of the ironies of the allergy hangover is that I don’t get hangovers from drinking. All right, in my limited experience I don’t. The one and only time I got drunk enough to truly be drunk was on vodka and orange juice; screwdrivers. Somewhere around the sixth or seventh tall glass there was precious little orange juice in them. I slurred my words, and things that weren’t funny were very funny at the time. The next morning, my friend who had joined me had classic hang over symptoms. I woke up bright eyed and bushy-tailed, cheerful and no worse for wear. She hated me that day. She, of course, continued to be a drinker for years to come, and suffered numerous hangovers. I who did not get hangovers and could have drunk without that penalty, just didn’t like it that well. Proof that the universe is both ironic and unfair.
More irony; two of my male friends that are straight and one of female friends that is gay all have absolutely no gag reflex. Now how unfair is that? The rest of us that could use this talent must struggle on, and learn to work around our deficiencies.
But as I sit here nursing my first hot cup of tea of the morning, and trying to fight off the headache that is trying to take off the back of my skull and neck, I think about the fact that my drinking friend has absolutely no allergies at all. Maybe, in the end the universe is fair, after all.
Now, if I could just figure out a polite way to ask my three friends with no gag reflex what little misery they’ve got instead, I’d really know if the universe was fair. But some questions are not meant to be asked even between close friends. Not unless liquor is involved, and alas, I do not drink.

Blood Noir Charity Auctions and giveaway, Brenda Novak’s Annual Juvenile Diabetes Auction, Blood Noir Tour, Spring Newsletter, Promo Banners, Conestoga Podcast, Free Stuff and Widgets, Full Moon
Sale
SIGNED BLOOD NOIR CHARITY AUCTIONS AND GIVEAWAY
—————————————————————-
The auctions are up! There are only two this time. We didn’t get as many copies. 🙁 Both auctions end May 2nd!
Item : 140227725287 Granite City APA
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140227725287
Item : 140227725779 Midwest Pug Rescue
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140227725779
GIVEAWAYS!
I only have two more arc’s. So one is being given away randomly to a fan club member. But the second will be given in a random drawing.
Please follow these instructions!
One entry per person.
Email your name and adress to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Email Subject Line: Blood Noir Giveaway (this is so it will sort right)
Email Body: Your name and address.
Fan club members are eligible for the email contest. But must send in an email to enter.
One winner will be randomly chosen on May 2nd. Should the winning persons package be returned as undeliverable, an alternate winner will be chosen. This has happened.
Contest is open to residents of the planet Earth. (Someone always asks about their non-US country, so this should cover everyone.)
JUVENILE DIABETES AUCTION
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The auction starts May 1st! Be sure to go register and check out the goodies!
http://brendanovak.auctionanything.com/
BLOOD NOIR TOUR
—————————————————————
May 27, 2008 / 6:00 PM
Barnes & Noble 2722
9618 Watson Road
Crestwood, MO 63126
314-843-9480
June 3, 2008 / 6:00 PM
Borders 421
3140 Lohr Road
Ann Arbor, MI 48108
Store Phone: 734-997-8884
June 5, 2008 / 6:30 PM
The Civic Center Library
(Poisoned Pen Bookstore)
3839 N. Drinkwater Blvd.
Scottsdale, AZ 85251
480-947-2974
Tickets available in advance from PoisonedPen.com. This is a fund raiser for the library. Please see the website for details.
June 12, 2008 / 7:00 pm
Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation and Fantasy
239 College Street (Lower Level)
Toronto, Canada
SPRING NEWSLETTER
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The Spring Newsletter is going out this week and next in large batches.
PROMO BANNERS
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Slowly but surely we are getting all the banners for every book
done. See em here:
http://s186.photobucket.com/albums/x…cember/Promos/”
target=”_blank”>..src=”http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x…pseBanner2.gif”
alt=”ddecember/Promos” border=”0″ />
CONESTOGA PODCAST
—————————————————————–
Melissa Tatum’s interview with Laurell is available:
http://www.sftulsa.org/conestoga/2008/03/10/program-37-laurel-k-
hamilton/
FREE STUFF
——————————————————————-
https://www.laurellkhamilton.com/Merchandise/LKHFreeStuff.html.
Offering right now is a A Lick Of Frost Magnet or an Anita Blake Was
Here window cling.
To get a free item, please send a self-addressed stamped envelope to:
Laurell K Hamilton PO Box 190306 St. Louis, MO 63119.
Add one of widgets to your website or social site and include the
address so we can see it and we will send along a surprise goodie!
You can now add Laurell’s blog to your website. Find the code at http://www.widgetbox.com, search for
Laurell Hamilton.
FULL MOON SALE
——————————————————————–
Starting with May, we will be having a special sale on the Full
Moon. One item from the fan club will get a big discount for that
day only.
Okay, I won’t make you keep track of the moon phases and dates.
Instead we offer a widget that will tell you exactly which day it is:
https://www.laurellkhamilton.com/Merchandise/Goodies.html
May 20th is the next.
That’s it for this bit! Darla

I’ve had to step back from Merry for a few days. I’m lost. I just can’t seem to get perspective on the plot. Either we really are going to kill one of the main villains of the piece at the end of book seven, which will cut the total number of books by several, or I’m just tired. Not a physical tiredness, but this sensation that comes over you sometimes in a series. You know so much about what’s coming, and what’s happened, that sometimes it all gets tangled in your head. It’s like a knot in a chain. The more you pull at it, the tighter the knot gets. You have to pick at knots like that, gently easing them this way and that. All I’ve done for the last few days is pull tighter until the knot seems impossible. So, I’m stepping back. It breaks my rule of never stopping in the middle of a book. But I’m not in the middle. I’m at the end. I’m at most a hundred pages out, and I’m freaking stuck.
I don’t think I’ve ever been this stuck, this close to the end before. It is an odd and uncomfortable sensation. If it were earlier in the book, I’d say that I’ve taken a wrong turn and need to back track. But the end is in sight, and the book that has gone before is good. There’s nothing wrong, so why am I stuck?
I have written and rewritten the last fifty pages of this book, twice now. Each of those pages is different. I’ve thrown out and started over, and it still isn’t right. So, in desperation I’m backing off and letting the end cook in my imagination, rather than trying to throw it onto paper before it seems ready. But, there will come a point of diminishing return. If my muse and I don’t come up with something brilliant, or at least exciting, and true to the book, by next week, then all bets are off. The book has to be finished. A hundred pages is not a barrier I can stand to leave untouched for long.
You can have all your fine literary ideals, but I’m a working writer. I’ll quote Jack London, “You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”
I’ll wait a few days, then I’m getting a club.

I promised you guys that the next vacation blog would be about dolphins. Well, here it is. We went to Dolphins Plus on Key Largo.

I?m having a little trouble choosing pictures for this part since Trinity and I were the ones that got in the water with the dolphins. Why is that a problem? Because I make it a rule not to put up pictures of her on the blog. Pedophiles and other not so nice people lurk on the web. Caution is better when it comes to the kiddo. It?s also why she?s not mentioned as much in the blog as she might be. That and what might be amusing to me, might be embarrassing to her. Again, a reason to be cautious. So, it?s been a problem, because most of the pictures have Trin in them, and it?s a full face shot. Those are not going up. See earlier reasoning. So, some of the best pictures are not going up on the blog. They?ll go in our scrap book, and the family photos, but that?s it. Sigh.

There is an orientation where you learn how to touch the dolphins in a way that they won?t find objectionable. They don?t like to be grabbed at. I guess we don?t either. You don?t get any pictures of the orientation because the kiddo is too visible in all of them. Also, it?s just a bunch of people sitting around picnic tables under a roof, listening to someone talk. Not that visually interesting. You have a chance to ask questions, and test your understanding of what you?ll be doing in the water, and what the dolphins may be doing.

Some of our first views of the dolphins:

Yes, that?s me standing in the shadows waiting to get in the water. I look so serious, don?t I. All pale and unhappy. I?m always pale, genetics being what it is. There were a lot of people from Norway, Sweden, and various Nordic areas, and I was paler than all of them. That?s just sad. Why unhappy? I had to put on a wet suit. The water was only seventy degrees, and water that is thirty degrees, or so, below body temperature will make you cold fast. So, the wet suit, but I hate wet suits. All right, I hate the way I feel and look in a wet suit. Jon says I looked cute, but he loves me, he always thinks I look cute. Trin is off looking at the sea lions. Yes, they had those, too. You can even swim with them. Trin wants us to swim with the sea lions next time. Works for me.

Here we are in the water with the dolphins. We got to swim with the alpha male, L. B., and alpha female, Dingy, and their baby Julie. The baby doesn?t do everything, but she?s learning. L. B. stands for Little Bit, which I guess he was once, but as you can see from the pictures, they had to shorten it to L. B. because there?s nothing little about him now. He weighs over seven hundred pounds. He was impressive, especially up close. Dingy stands, strangely, for Ding-a-ling, though no one explained why.
here you can see all three of them pushing against our feet, to move us around the pool. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be to keep the legs stiff enough for the dolphins to push.

Here I am being towed by L. B. and Dingy. Trin got towed, too, but her smiling face is too visible, so you?ll have to be satisfied with just me. One of the things they taught us was how to hold onto the dorsal fin. It?s very delicate and could be injured, so you?ve got to hold on just so. Oh, and my hair looking so red? Not sure. I?m finding more and more when out in direct sunlight I?ve got all these red tones. The more sunlight, the more auburn. Weird.

There?s their instructor on the floaty thing. Being towed like this was very Flipper. More than anything we did with the dolphins, this was the classic thing you think of, at least for me.

Trinity and I watching our neighbors dolphin get some air.

L. B. and Dingy bringing us their hoop.
Julie, the baby, going through the hoop.
The rest of Julie going through the hoop.
Someone bigger going through the hoop.


Someone much bigger.

And now for the kiss. Trinity requested that she get her kiss on her palm, which was an option. I took it on the cheek, because when would I ever get another chance to feel a dolphin touch my face? Too weird, and too wonderful to pass up. Though, I don?t think the dolphin?s heart was in it. But, you know how hard you have to work to stay still in water when you?re treading, even in a life jacket? All right, I have trouble. The dolphins don?t. The dolphin, and forgive me L. B. and Dingy because I can?t remember whose beak was touching me, but the dolphin was almost motionless. Their skin feels not rubbery, but that?s the closest I can come. They actually feel very smooth, clean, and soft, but different. I?ll be struggling with ways to describe it better, and when I nail it, I?ll blog it.

Here we are getting presents from L. B. and Dingy. What presents? They fetch things from the bottom of their pool, and give them to you. Trin and I both got string algae. The same stuff that we?re always trying to get rid of in the pond at home. But what?s an irritation in the water garden seems cool and special when handed to you by a dolphin. Some other little girls got leaves. You can then take your presents to the photo area and they will put them in a laminated book mark. Trin and I both got it done. The two girls left their leaves in the bathroom, and when I brought it to them, because I thought they?d forgotten them, they didn?t want them. We?d just been in the water with these amazing animals. I wanted the slime we got, and they wanted nothing. I didn?t understand that, and neither did Trinity. But each to their own.

Pictures you missed because Trin was too visible, are the dolphins pushing us by our feet, our hands in front of us like Superman. Or would that be Aqua-man? Us, petting the dolphins. We got to rub their tummies. You rub in one direction and you stop before you get too far down the body.

We also got to have the dolphins do that stand on their tail thing, and we touched their flippers. I wasn?t very good at that, and lost my grip, and since we?d been told not to grab, well, I let my dolphin go rather than risk hurting it.
Me loosing my grip on the dolphin.

Not us, the people that were next. But we didn?t get to do this trick, and it was cool.

Air born dolphins. Too cool.

This is Castaway

She?s a deep sea dolphin, notice the darker gray color. She was rescued, then rehabilitated, and released, but she kept coming back in. They tried to release her again, but someone noticed that she didn?t interact with the other dolphins, at all. Someone got a bright idea and tested her further. She?s deaf. For a dolphin that is tragic, they find their food and navigate by echo location, and they are a very vocal people. So, she became a permanent resident at Dolphins Plus. She can?t do the behaviors the way the others do, because she can?t hear the whistles. But she has trainers that work with her while the other dolphins are worked with, and they do other behaviors with them.
Here?s one with more sunlight on her, so you can see herhead more.

This is one of the best views we got of the tail of one of the dolphins. I include it to talk about the souvenir that Jon, Trin, and I got. Dolphins Plus has necklaces of the dolphin?s tails. Not just generic tails, but each individual dolphin has it?s tail photographed, first because the tail can be like fingerprints, so you can recognize them. Second, so someone can sculpt and design a charm that matches each individual tail. I wanted one from the moment I knew what they were, but Jon shooed both myself and Trin away. I knew then, what he was doing, but it?s all about letting your sweetie surprise you sometimes. I distracted Trin, and let him buy the gifts for us. He got me the tail of the alpha male L. B. Trin got the Alpha female, Dingy. Jon bought Castaway for himself. We were all touched by Castaway?s story.

We also got the video of our time with the dolphins, which is extra, but was worth it. I mean how many times in your life do you get to swim with dolphins? How many times do you and your daughter get to swim together with dolphins? It was entirely too cool. Trinity declared this vacation better than Disney World, which is freaking high praise from her. I had to agree, though my heart still loves the Mouse Kingdom, it doesn?t have dolphins.

Oh, and why did just Trin and I do the dolphins? Jon and his parents didn?t want to. Mary and Art, though they thought it was very nifty, still are happy to watch if we go back. Jon though was quite taken with it all, and is willing to swim with the dolphins next time. Besides, if Mary and Jon had gotten in the water who would have taken the pictures for you to see?

Today is one of those gloomy, rainy days. Most of the time I love days like this, but today seems unsettled. Storm is coming, you can feel it like a prickle along the back of your neck. Normally, again, I like storms, but today just feels oppressive, as if something really big is sneaking up on us here. Maybe I’m being melodramatic, I am a writer after all. We artistic types do love our drama sometimes, but it’s not just me. My mother-in-law, Mary, is having the same trouble focusing as I am. You go from task to task, and don’t really get anything done. You move things around, but nothing is accomplished.
The problem is, that I’m at the fight scene in SWALLOWING DARKNESS. I really need to accomplish something today. I keep staring at the words on the screen and moving them around, or deleting, or talking to myself on screen, but no real forward progress. I can’t seem to “see” the scene in my head. I need to feel the seat of the car Merry is sitting in, smell the gunshots. Oh, yeah, you can smell a gun shot, if you’re close enough. It’s especially easy if a lot of rounds are going off. It’s the CORDITE, that you smell. It’s not a bad smell, or even acrid, just a smell. It does have an aftertaste of something burning, but it doesn’t quite smell burnt. I’ve come to like the smell.
I need to feel Merry’s hand around her sword hilt, and I don’t. I don’t “feel” it. It’s just words on paper today. Crap.
Today is a slogging day. A day when you feel like you’re hiking through thick mud, and you can’t move any faster, and the harder you try the more tired you get. If you want to see a visual of what I mean by slogging, check out the Top Gear episode 6 of Series 10 (Episode number 88). The Review of the Alfa Romeo 159. Graham Boanas, who crosses the Humber river in a race with James May, slogs through the mud.
Maybe I’m afraid, not that we’ll loose the bad guy, but that we might loose another good guy. We lost Frost last book, I don’t want to loose anymore, and neither does Merry. Double crap, often my subconscious knows when something bad is coming on paper, long before I know. One of the signs that is happening, is that I begin to slow in the progress of the book, slow until I’m crawling along, or stopped all together. Is that what this is? Are we going to loose another man that Merry’s loves? I hope not. There are days when being one of those writers that plans everything, and controls everything, looks pretty good. But it’s never been the way I write.
Maybe it’s just the weather. Maybe once the storm breaks we’ll be fine. If you’ve got a favorite of Merry’s men, then start wishing them well, because I’ve got that dread feeling. To give you some idea of what that means, the first time I had it was in GUILTY PLEASURES with Phillip.

Eight pages of Merry. Seven pages of the next Anita.
But yesterday my second writing session was something I hadn’t done in years: a short story. I have seventeen pages of a brand new short story. Okay, novella, or is novelette? I can’t remember which is shorter by SFWA rules. Oh, Science Fiction Writers of America. Whichever is shorter is the one it’s going to be. I’d estimate around thirty pages. Maybe less?
The second writing session began as a way for my muse and I to play, then I started making real progress on the new Anita book. Not BLOOD NOIR, but like the newer, as in unfinished one. And you know me, once you get past fifty pages, then a hundred, I started getting goal oriented. I thought, cool, I’ll have this book well in hand when SWALLOWING DARKNESS is finished. But then, a strange thing happened, my muse and I had a falling out.
“You promised I could work on anything I ‘wanted’ to work on in the second session,” she reminded. She had a point. I’d made the second session just more work.
So Sunday, I let my muse play. I did two pages of one story, and it’s a great opening, but it’s not ready to be written, not quite. Then I sat down to my second short idea, and boy, was it ready to go. Seventeen pages in two hours, pretty darn good, even for me. I felt energized, and refreshed when I finished.
Sometimes work is work, but sometimes I remember a time when it was play. It’s good to remind myself what it was like when it was just my wish and my hobby.